Craigslist Crazy : Online New World Pet Shop- From-Dog Flipping to Dog Park Trading / Pet Sharing

Do you know what a dog flipper is? It is someone who finds a free pet on craigslist or other online classified ad boards takes the pet and resells the pet a a re-homing fee profit. People are becoming instant millionaires as dog flippers. Pet flippers because there are no sought after pets that cannot be flipped. Craigslist flaggers are trying to identify and flag and remove ads by pet flippers but it is nearly impossible to figure out who is a homer and who is a flipper. Rehoming is a euphemism for a pet being given away with unwritten rules enforced by the flaggers on the site who decide how much money is too much money for a rehoming fee. Rehoming fees can be upwards of $200 or virtually any "token" amount someone wants to put in the rehoming ad. Alerts now appear on Craigslist warning of pet flippers who just picked up a free pet and have listed it at a $500 rehoming fee. One can find that Portuguese water dog one year old for the $600 rehoming fee which is a 100% profit for the seller if he did not have to pay any fee to pick up the unwanted pet. It only takes 2000 such transactions for the flipper to become a millionaire in the pet flipping business. As the competition heats up so do the re-homing fees as some flippers will put down money to buy low and sell much higher. There is snake , turtle , cat ,rat, rabbit and even horse flippers now. Pot belly big flippers too? There is a weird new world of pet flipping that goes beyond craigslist on countless free ad sites . Oregon made laws against pet collectors and against puppy mills but no one anticipated pet flipping. Animal collecting is now completely legal if someone labels their enterprise as a pet refuge, sanctuary and gets a non-profit accreditation. Some of the worst offending pet flippers turn out to be animal relief organizations and pet rescue missions. A lot of these pick up the free pets and then start rehoming at a profit and they are not very happy with the free lance pet flippers who tend play up the warm and cuddly family home for the unwanted pet only to start flipping immediately after the pick up because feeding pets cuts into profits.

Pet flipping is just the tip of the new world online pet shop reality. There is also dog trading at the dog park. Flippers and others have learned that they can get rid of excess inventory by offering pet trades. Some very popular dog parks have become centers of pet trading commerce where business can be safely conducted in the open air. Go to a dog park and watch. People will come with one pet on their leash and leave with someone else's. That is when you know a pet trade went down in the dog park. Sometimes some comes to a dog park with six dogs and leaves with one or none. You cannot always tell. Don't go out and make false allegations against strangers you observe noting taking the same pets they came with because Ever stranger things are going on. One new trend is the pet sleep over. This is where pets just go home with outer pets to visit over night or to left while their masters go on vacation. One can advertise that one boards vacation pets and make over $20 a day doing this. It is especially popular in dog parks and most trusted are people who regularly bring their pets to the park to advertise their services. Flippers sometimes offer prepaid pet trial periods with a refundable deposits. There are pet rental deals for those who only want a pet for a short period of time for what ever reason sometimes just to make a social impression.

Strangest maybe the pet sharing thing that is going on. It sort of started with divorcees that share paternal rights the way they do with children. Divorcees would meet at dog parks and one will bring the dog give the ex spouse a dirty look and leave them to take the dog home. Pet sharing on craigslist is more like the shared zip car program where one joins a program to have a fancy pure breed dog only when one wants one like when going on a hike in the woods because they might live in a no pets apartment or condo. Some people are sharing cows and goats for unpasteurized "organic" milk and others are sharing llamas as some kind of wacky investment in alpaca. Horses can be shared for week end riding to save the expense of up keep and to keep them ready like riding time shares. You might even find an occasional pet elephant sharing program if you watch craigslist ads long enough. Craigslist Bangkok is the perfect place to place an ad if you actually want to become a shared owners of an elephant. You might even find an elephant flipper offering an Asian elephant in Chang Mai with a $2000 rehoming fee but don't expect to be able to bring it back to Portland Oregon.